Merchants are motivated to find methods and systems for making transactions easier, faster, and more efficient for consumers, e-commerce transactions conducted via the Internet. A large number of offerings for goods and services on the Internet, combined with impatient consumers, are perceived to result in a loss of potential sales for merchants who do not provide a fast and effective method for facilitating a payment transaction. As a result, many efforts have been made to developed methods for increasing the speed and efficiency of e-commerce transactions.
In one solution, some merchants have streamlined the purchasing process for goods or services. For example, Amazon® offers a one-click solution where a consumer may locate a good or service for purchase, and then purchase the item with a single click, without the need to navigate through shopping cart, billing information, shipping information, and confirmation pages. However, systems such as these still often require the consumer to first arrive at a webpage for the good or service before enabling the consumer to conduct the transaction. Thus, a potential consumer may browse a website and see a product that he or she has a desire to buy, but then must first identify a merchant offering the product, navigate to the merchant website, locate the product, and then initiate the transaction. Such an in-depth and time-intensive process may result in lost sales to consumers that are impatient, easily distracted, or less committed to the purchase.
Thus, there is a need for a technical solution to provide a more efficient way to facilitate payment transactions in e-commerce.